Happy Holidays!

The Phillips Family Christmas Eve was held at our house this year, simply because we can barely all squeeze into mom's living room now. Lots of food (I'm still eating leftover ham), fun (the gift exchange was a hit) and family. Aly and I made some yummy brownies, and we had the usual cheese and crackers, little smokies, chips and dip, etc.

Since we were leaving for Gatlinburg on Christmas morning, we surprised the kids a day early with their Christmas presents. Actually, the boy already took his driving lessons, so he didn't get a lot of things to open. Aly was very surprised by her netbook. I got a beautiful turquoise bracelet and moose sheets for the bedroom. LOL, I told Mike we are definitely an old married couple when he buys flannel sheets for Christmas and I love them. I got lots of other stuff too, and it was all thoughtful and fun. Our family does gift giving right, with love in our hearts.

Of course, before Christmas I got my new Canon camera. That means all of my photos totally rock. I took some great shots in Gatlinburg and have ordered 5X7s to see how they look. I'm thinking of getting some larger ones to hang in the living room. This one is from my trek (part of the way) up the mountain in Gatlinburg and one of my favorites. I'm thankful that Zak didn't have the camera as I slid down the mountain on my backside in classic Tonya fashion. Christmas Day we went to the Black Bear Jamboree for dinner and actually had a pretty good time. The food was great, there was plenty of it, and the show wasn't too corny.

The day after Christmas, we went to the Gatlinburg Arts and Crafts Community to Alewine Pottery for Aly to have a pottery lesson on a real pottery wheel. It was very cool. For $5, you can have a lesson and for $20 more, they fire the piece, glaze it and mail it to you. We should have Aly's bowl in about 6 weeks. We can't wait to go back again. I think we'll schedule multiple visits since Aly really did enjoy it. I got some great action shots, and we plan to scrapbook them together this week while I'm off work. {The partners gave us two extra holidays and asked that we take two vacation or floating holidays this week so the firm could be closed. Even on days off, many of us end up working, so to completely disconnect is really nice.}

Uncle Johnny came to our house while we were gone, to keep an eye on Lucy. We took Scrappy with us to Gatlinburg, but Lucy is getting old and can't do such a long car ride, or hang out in a place she doesn't know. Scrappy was in her element, sniffing everything she could get her nose on, and looking cute. Lucy was pretty happy too, snuggling with Uncle Johnny all week along with Graycie. Cricket was not pleased and let me know about it when we got home. Snowy, of course, went with the flow, although she did follow Aly everywhere for the first day home.

Plans for the rest of the week include catching up on magazine reading, taking naps, scrapbooking and watching movies. No big plans for new years eve, seeing as how I'm old and probably won't make it to midnight anyway. Here's hoping you had a merry Christmas and a great 2009.

P.S. Facebook let me make this cool collage of my 2009 status updates. It is a neat little snapshot of my year.